The Cycle of Civilization

Showing Defining Characteristics for Each Phase of the Cycle

“The first step in sociological wisdom is to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur.” — Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), founder of Process Philosophy. Photo of the Acropolis in Greece by Constantinos Kollias.

Question: How do we account for the seemingly inexplicable rise in grandiose narcissistic behavior post-2020?

Think of all the little hitlers who’ve made a name for themselves since 2020, with behavior that matches the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder:

• Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand

• Joe Biden, 46th US President

• Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy until February 2021

• Tony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the US President

• Alberto Fernández, President of Argentina

• Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK until September 2022

• Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria until October 2021

• Emmanuel Macron, President of France

• Sanna Marin, Prime Minister of Finland

• Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany until December 2021

• Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia until May 2022

• Carlos Alvarado Quesada, President of Costa Rica until May 2022

• Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of the Netherlands

• Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

• Liz Truss, Prime Minister of the UK since September 2022

Mass Formation

One explanation is Mattias Desmet’s mass formation. In his book, The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Desmet explains how noticeably irrational and extreme societal behaviors can occur when members of society become decoupled from each other and experience a free-floating anxiety that things don’t make sense.

“Mass formation is in essence, a kind of group hypnosis that destroys individuals ethical self-awareness and robs them of their ability to think critically. This process is insidious in nature. Populations fall prey to it unsuspectingly.” — Mattias Desmet

According to Desmet, it is when society enters this kind of group hypnosis that it becomes easy for an individual — or group of individuals — to focus society’s attention, using narcissistic tactics. That is because the citizens under the collective spell believe anything said to them by the narcissist, even though there is credible and proven data to prove the narcissist is not correct.

The Cycle of Civilization

Another explanation, though, is that cultures and civilizations go through cycles. There are very specific behaviors that emerge en masse for each phase in this cycle. Each phase has its own defining characteristics. By looking at the predominant behaviors, we can relatively easily identify the phase our civilization is in.

As each civilization reaches relative maturity, behaviors like hubris, self-interest and elitism become more and more evident. It is at this point — according to the mountains of literature — that narcissistic leaders emerge and the collapse of the society is imminent.

“Frivolity, aestheticism, hedonism, cynicism, pessimism, narcissism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fatalism, fanaticism, and other negative attributes, attitudes, and behaviors suffuse the population… Rotten to the core, the society awaits collapse, with only the date remaining to be determined.” — William Ophuls, Immoderate Greatness (2012)

Cycle of Civilization Literature

• Spengler, in his book The Decline of the West (1918), argued that all cultures are subject to the same cycle of growth and decay.

• Toynbee in his Study of History (1934), described the existence of civilizations in a life cycle of four stages: genesis, growth, breakdown, and disintegration.

• Sorokin argued in Social and Cultural Dynamics (1937) that civilizations cycled through three cultural mentalities: ideational (spiritual needs), sensate (“wine, women, and song”), and idealistic (a balance of needs and ends).

• Quigley offered, in The Evolution of Civilizations (1961), seven stages of a civilization’s change: mixture, gestation, expansion, age of conflict, universal empire, decay, and invasion.

• Melko, in his book The Nature of Civilizations (1969), provides a model of a civilization cycle’s stages including crystallization, transition (T), complete disintegration (D), and ossification (freezing at a crystallized stage) (O).

There are many more examples from historical literature, but you get the idea: civilizations rise and fall through fairly predictable cycles. Each of the authors who dedicated their lives to a study of one aspect of the cycle of civilization developed a model. Each model simplifies reality. When we consider such a complex reality as the history and cycle of civilizations, models become more useful in understanding where we are today.

Defining Characteristics of each Phase of The Cycle of Civilization

From a detailed study of much of the collapse literature, we realised that there are two things missing:

• A celebration of the cyclical nature of the process, with an emphasis on the inevitable emergence of the ‘next’ civilization, and

• The defining characteristics for each phase. These characteristics, once identified, make it easy for citizens to know which phase their country currently finds itself in.

We have gone through many of the models of the Cycle of Civilization to produce an infographic flow chart, which you can download here (or see below). We’ve updated the names of each phase to more closely match today’s ‘zeitgeist.’ Feel free to refer to this chart when the next bit of weirdness happens in your country. Even better, share it with friends who might be struggling to make sense of current events.

Here are the 7 Phases of the Cycle of Civilization. Where there are additional names in brackets, these refer to John Glubb’s 1977 book, The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival. You can find references to all sources here.

• Phase 1 — Stability: Egalitarian; ecological and economic harmony and equilibrium. Extraordinary eloquence, rhetoric and reasoning skills.
  Defining characteristics: vigor and virtue.

• Phase 2 — Early Growth (Age of Pioneers or Conquests): Division of labor. Resource allocation & governance systems are built.
  Defining characteristics: optimism, confidence, shared purpose, high moral code.

• Phase 3 — Prosperity (Age of Commerce): Relatively long period of peace & prosperity.
  Defining characteristics: unity, pride, patriotism and devotion to duty, self-confident.

• Phase 4 — Overshoot (Age of Affluence): Conspicuous overuse of resources. Debt and socio-economic inequalities increase.
  Defining characteristics: Greed, selfishness, complacency, arrogance, self-righteousness.

• Phase 5 — Hubris (Age of Intellect): Power concentrated in the hands of a few hubristic individuals who “know best.” Standard of living plummets.
  Defining characteristics: Decadence, decay, narcissism, elitism, self-interest, all talk no action.

• Phase 6 — Totalitarianism (Age of Decadence): Dictatorial government & leaders, censorship & propaganda, civil uprisings.
  Defining characteristics: cynicism, pessimism, fatalism, fanaticism. “Rotten to the core, the society awaits collapse, with only the date remaining to be determined.” — William Ophuls, Immoderate Greatness

• Phase 7 — Emergence: Civil society starts organizing in new ways; new forms of governance emerge.
  Defining characteristics: contrarian thinking, courage, hope, determination, perseverance.

Cycle of Civilization Infographic

For sources and explanations, see https://bit.ly/CycleCiv. Licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 — share freely as long as this link is used as credit.

Keep this graphic handy as you navigate the complexities of current events. For most countries in the West, we are either in late Stage 5 or early Stage 6. We know this based on the behaviors we see within society and from our leaders.

Remember to download a PDF version here and share with anyone who is concerned about what they see happening in the world.

I am a systems thinking advisor and confidant on a mission to bring the benefits (and profits) of Ethical Sustainable Development Initiatives to the boardroom. I am grateful for the support I receive from my extensive network, without which I would not be able to offer consulting and project implementation services, systems thinking workshops and bespoke training for teams and executives that want to embrace systems thinking to leave a lasting legacy.

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The Cycle of Civilization was originally published in Society 4.0 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.